


I Will Always Love You

by Pixeled



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Death, Immortal Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 12:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixeled/pseuds/Pixeled
Summary: Vincent still loved Reeve after one hundred years, after two hundred. At five hundred, the world was dark and quiet like Vincent. The mausoleum stood in ruins. Vincent stood in ruins too.





	I Will Always Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested listening: Chase Holfelder - I Will Always Love You

“Is this really what you want?” Reeve asked, his eyes betraying how he really felt. For years, he’d loved Vincent, given into everything he ever wanted. This was no different, though it hurt. It hurt bitterly, and he wished it could be different.

“I want to remember you like this,” Vincent whispered, fingers brushing Reeve’s cheek, leaning in to kiss him gently.

Reeve was getting older. His hair was peppered with gray, more lines in his face than he remembered even a year prior. Vincent still looked twenty-seven, still had porcelain smooth features. He would never age, never fall ill, never die, because he was already dead. Reeve would only grow frailer. Vincent would be forced to watch him die. He didn’t want that.

And so he would leave. He would go away. Hide. He would remember Reeve as he was when he met him, as he was now.

It was a quiet night. The street lights cast dramatic shadows, threw Vincent’s face into stark relief. He swore he saw tears there. It wasn’t easy, his decision, and yet he had made it.

They made love one last time—slow, somber, and perfect in its aching beauty.

When Vincent left, Reeve found the letter tucked under his pillow. It still held some of his warmth. Reeve touched it with all the reverence of a relic or a tombstone.

Sometimes, in the night, he swore he saw glimpses of red swirling above the high buildings of his city, but Reeve knew better. Vincent was far from him, tucked in the far corners of Gaia.

He read that letter every year on his birthday, marking the passage of years.

Ten years passed achingly slow.

Then twenty.

Thirty, and the letter curled and the words looked worn with age. The paper had yellowed. Reeve touched it as if he could touch his lover. He loved its folds like the parts of Vincent’s body he’d fit inside.

He never loved another after Vincent left. How could he? He had fallen for him the moment he laid eyes on him, and would never love anyone in that rare possessive and beautiful way again.

Reeve was starting to feel his age closing in on him. His body was failing him. But he would die on his own terms.

And he did. Alone, in his own home, the warm summer breeze on his face, the letter tucked in his hand, its edges etched into his fingers. He’d never had children—his line would end with him. He made peace with it.

Part of him had held hope that Vincent would return to him, but he never did.

Years after his passing Vincent came to sit at his grave, the large mausoleum shielding him from the harsh winter light, startlingly white. And as it began to snow, tears formed in his eyes and trailed their wetness down his cheeks, snowflakes caught in his lashes. He blinked them and the tears away and touched his fingers to the inscription on the tombstone lying within the stone structure. It was etched with the words “I will always love you”. His last words, written in the letter he had left Reeve.

He walked down the grassy hill Reeve’s mausoleum had stood on and left silently.

Ten years passed.

Then twenty.

Thirty turned into forty turned into fifty. Time marched on, but Vincent stood still.

Vincent still loved Reeve after one hundred years, after two hundred. At five hundred, the world was dark and quiet like Vincent. The mausoleum stood in ruins. Vincent stood in ruins too.

Still, Vincent remembered Reeve as he had been that night they met.

He had made his choice.

And he lived on.


End file.
